Pete Carroll talks about rugby star Jarryd Hayne. Sort of

Published 2:52 pm Wednesday, October 15, 2014

When Australian rugby star Jarryd Hayne shocked sports fans in his country by announcing his retirement in order to pursue an NFL career Tuesday, many were quick to connect him to the Seahawks.

Not only had Hayne visited the Seahawks’ facilities on a visit last month, but Pete Carroll and John Schneider are just crazy enough to consider taking a look at a player from another sport.

Well on Wednesday Carroll was asked about Hayne, and said he couldn’t talk about the player specifically, but did have a few thoughts on the idea of a rugby player making the transition.

First, when asked about Hayne, Carroll sarcastically said, “Our scout down under has been on this for some time now. He’s an incredible athlete, and a great competitor, which is the stuff we kind of like. We’ll see where it goes.”

He then continued, “I’m afraid to mention anything because I’m not sure of the rights here and things like that; I don’t know about the contract issues down there. So we’ll leave that one up to John to figure that one out.”

When a follow-up question was asked about what position might fit Hayne best, Carroll said, “I don’t think I’m able to talk about him. We couldn’t talk about a player on another team, we just want to make sure we don’t mess it up. As soon as we’re free and I know what the rulings are, I’ll give you some scoop on it. It’s a pretty exciting thought, anyway. I always thought it would really cool to recruit down there and all of that, because there are some great players and it’s a great game, a very physical demanding game. Those guys have all the same kind of stuff that we’re looking for in our guys.”

Carroll did say that rugby players in general could be good fits in American football, “because they’re great athletes. They run fast, they hit hard, they can handle the ball. The style of throwing and catching is different, and running routes is different then whipping it out there to them, so there’s different stuff, but we’re looking for great athletes to make the transition. Because our guys on our level are fantastic athletes, and I’m sure our guys could cross over too as soon as they figured out how to lateral it all the time, and kicking it on the run—we’d be miserable at that I’m sure. There is a lot of general carryover, because it’s running and making people miss and tackling and hitting and being tough and physical and all that stuff.”

Hayne, however, is 26 and has never played organized American football, which would make his dream of playing the NFL seem incredibly tough.

“I think it’d be really hard,” Carroll said. “It would be a tremendous challenge, and only certain few could do it. There would need to be a lot of patience for the club that goes for it if you do it. It isn’t the kind of thing, unless we’re writing a great script here, that a guy could come in in the middle of a season and all of a sudden present a staring role for that team. I don’t think that’s going to happen. I think it’s going to take more time than that. But we’ve seen guys over the years who have made transitions from other sports, basketball players doing it, so it can happen certainly.”

Carroll said he did not meet Hayne on his visit here.